


To Whatever End

by sv_you_know_who_I_am



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 22:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7989043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sv_you_know_who_I_am/pseuds/sv_you_know_who_I_am
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>EMPIRE OF STORMS SPOILERS</p><p>Aelin makes a request of Rowan that he would never refuse--and one that will change the future of Terrasen forever. </p><p>Part 1 is rated T, and Part 2 is rated E (very smutty).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ONCE MORE: EMPIRE OF STORMS SPOILERS! TURN BACK NOW IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED!
> 
> As per my usual, I am dealing with my feelings by writing fanfiction. If you are still emotionally unstable after EoS, this will probably not help. But I had to write this scene (which SJM rudely did not give us in the book). I’m sorry! *bursts into tears*
> 
> Chapter 1 is rated T, Chapter 2 is rated E.

_She took his hand, gripping it hard. “Rowan.” **  
**_

_The spark died from his eyes._

_She squeezed his fingers. “Rowan, I need you to do something for me.”_

~

He hadn’t dared say no. Not to his Fireheart, not when her turquoise eyes bore the smoldering burden of someone ten times her age. Not when her voice had become so small--so small, and yet so steady--as she had spoken the words.

“I need you to marry me.”

He had blinked once, the only amount of shock or surprise he would allow her to see. “Now?” he breathed.

She nodded.

As if sensing his next question, she went on, “We’ve known for a long time now that nothing is guaranteed. No matter how many allies we gain or how much time we’re spared, _nothing_ is guaranteed. And you know me--I like to leave nothing to chance.”

He knew that--by the gods, he knew. But this . . .

“There’s a possibility . . .” She swallowed as though the words were stuck in her throat. “There’s a possibility that I might not see Terrasen again for a long time. But it needs a leader. It needs you, Rowan. Aedion . . . they will follow Aedion, too, but there is no one in this world that I trust more than you.” She bit her lip and locked her eyes with his. “There’s no one I love more.”

Rowan’s throat bobbed as the words echoed in his ears. It struck him deep in his core, that she would gift him with this, even as his heart ached at the other implication.

That Terrasen would need him if she didn’t survive this war.

He sucked in a ragged breath and wrapped his arms around her back, crushing her close to his body and tucking her head beneath his chin. “I am yours, Aelin. _Carranam_ , blood-sworn . . . husband. I will be whatever you need me to be.”

A word still yet hung between them, a word he’d long forgotten and one that his heart could not bear to remember.

Aelin turned her head to kiss his collarbone. Softly, like a promise. “Then let’s get the others.”

~

Aedion was pissed off at being awoken pre-dawn for a total of thirty seconds before he saw the look on his cousin’s face. When he saw the inscrutable emotions in her eyes like his, he silently rose out of bed, dressed, and followed her to the captain’s cabin. Lysandra met them on the way, and Aedion locked eyes with her once and gathered that she had no idea what this was about, either.

Rowan was waiting in the cabin with the captain, who, like Aedion, seemed unhappy at the early hour, though he lacked Aedion’s Fae heritage to help rouse him from sleep as quickly. The man’s movements were sluggish as he drew up bits of parchment from his desk and prepared a quill with his shaking hands.

Aedion saw his cousin’s fingers twitch, the only sign of her impatience that cracked through her solemn exterior.

“What is this about?” Aedion finally asked, looking from his cousin to the Fae prince.

Aelin finally grinned at him, though it didn’t meet her eyes. “Cheer up, Aedion--it’s your cousin’s wedding day.”

The breath swept out of him in one stunned swoop. “ _What?_ ”

The grin fell from Aelin’s mouth. “Darrow might be an asshole, but he was right. I need more insurance for Terrasen’s throne. But unlike what _he_ hopes, that insurance won’t be him and his snivelling lords.” She looked over to Rowan and a hint of brightness appeared in her eyes again. “It will be Rowan.”

The Fae prince said nothing, only stared at his queen with a gaze so intense it might have lit her on fire--if she weren’t perfectly capable of doing that herself.

“You’re our witnesses,” Aelin continued, turning back to Aedion and Lysandra. “Do you consent?”

Aedion stood in stunned silence for a moment, but Lysandra gasped, “Yes, of course!” before flinging herself into Aelin’s arms. Aelin smiled--a genuine smile--as Lysandra stepped back again and her eyes fell back on Aedion.

He cleared his throat. “It would be an honor.”

Aelin schooled her face back into severity as she nodded at him and turned to the captain. “No one is to know about this.”

“Of course not. You have my word.”

“Not good enough, unfortunately,” Aelin said. She pulled a piece of parchment out of her own pocket and handed it to him. Aedion flinched when she unrolled it and he saw the Wyrdmark sketched upon it in her blood. “This is an oath of secrecy, sealed with magic. Break this . . . and you break the hull of your ship.”

The captain gaped at her, as did Aedion. By the gods . . . there was a Wyrdmark that could _do_ something like that? He was hardly surprised, but . . .

Rowan cleared his throat and looked from the captain to the offered statement. The captain hurriedly dipped his quill in ink and scrawled his signature there, not wanting to test the Fae warrior’s patience.

“I’ve taken the liberty of writing up the documents,” Aelin said, offering two other pieces. The captain looked at the blank pieces on his desk, upon which he’d been prepared to write them himself. “Time is of the essence, I’m afraid,” Aelin purred.

The captain, a wise man, simply nodded and took the prepared statements, adding in Rowan and Aelin’s names where she had left the spaces blank. “Shall we, then?” the captain said, gesturing to the two forces of nature within his cabin. Aedion decided he did not envy the man one bit.

Aelin moved to stand in front of Rowan and took both of his hands in hers. Aedion thought he forgot to breathe as the captain spoke the words that would marry them. Beside him, Lysandra was quietly crying.

The captain cleared his throat when he finished. “I pronounce you Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, Queen of Terrasen, and Rowan Whitethorn Galathynius, Prince Consort of Terrasen.”

Aedion almost choked out a sound of disbelief. Of _course_ Rowan would take her name. He had not even thought to wonder in the blur of the past several minutes, but it made so much sense now that Aedion wanted to laugh. Wanted to, but didn’t--not when he was struck utterly dumb by the crowns of fire that had appeared over the newlyweds’ heads.

The crowns were gone in a blink--all Aelin could muster for the moment. But it was enough. Enough to claim him, for everyone in that room to know what they were to each other--to know that the ties that bound them went far deeper than the ink that bled onto that parchment.

And the kiss that Aelin and Rowan shared, not caring for once if Aedion and Lysandra saw, struck Aedion so deep that he found himself looking away--and glancing at Lysandra.

He shuffled closer to her and muttered, “If I keep my promise to you, I swear it won’t be in a shitty, moldy ship in the middle of a shitty, nowhere harbor.” Lysandra snorted--a sound that brought him no small amount of relief.

Aelin didn’t even break away from Rowan’s kiss as she flung him a crude gesture.

Aedion finally smiled. Hell might break loose at any moment, but at least they could still find a hint of light in the darkness. And at least Aelin and Rowan could be happy.

They deserved that much.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STILL EMPIRE OF STORMS SPOILERS
> 
> This is the sexy aftermath of Part 1. Very NSFW. You have been warned.

The only sound in the room after the door clicked shut was their breathing, and even that required Fae senses to hear. Aelin’s hand wrapped around one of the posts of the bed, and she closed her eyes and tried to think around the storm of emotions in her mind and body.

She felt Rowan come up behind her. “Aelin . . .” he breathed, the word skating over her shoulder, her ear, her neck. Then his hands came forward to hold her hips, pulled her close to his own. “My wife.”

The reverence with which he said those words sent a molten current through her blood, and she tilted her head back toward him, melting into his solid frame. His mouth pressed down to the skin of her neck and he gave a hard tug at her hips, making her feel the desire that already possessed him. “Husband,” she purred in reply. Her voice came out hoarse, as the burning sea of emotions evaporated her voice as it left her throat.

One of Rowan’s hands left her hip to slide up under her shirt and drag along the skin of her torso. It paused between her breasts--over her heart. “My Fireheart,” he growled before adding his tongue to his kiss at her neck. His hand was so broad that he didn’t have to stretch his fingers far to flick at her breasts, a movement which caused a tiny moan to break from her throat. “I only have fifteen minutes in which to properly make you my wife.” His hand slid to cup one of her breasts entirely while he rolled his hips against her backside--a devilish promise for what was to come.

Aelin’s breath was already coming in gasps. “Get on with it, then,” she rasped.

Rowan’s laugh was dark and sensual against her throat. The hand at her hip slid down into the waistband of her pants, and the grumble of satisfaction he emitted when he felt how ready she was for him rattled her bones. One finger began to stroke her gently and slowly while his other hand released her breast and began the work of getting her pants off of her. She writhed in response and released the bed post to help get them over her hips. When he seemed to have it under control, she instead focused her attention on pulling her shirt over her head. His mouth, which had been concentrated on her neck, began laying kisses across the back of her shoulders. Her toes curled as his hand between her legs treated her so well . . .

“How do you want me, Rowan?” she asked, grinding her hips against his hand and the hardness in his pants in turn. “Tell me . . . tell me how you want to take me.”

He growled. “I want you every way. Whatever you want.”

She moaned against his hand rubbing back and forth more insistently now. “No,” she said with effort. “I want . . . I want you to choose.”

At those words, he triggered her release and she broke around his hand, slumping against him so that only his arm banded around her torso kept her upright. She was panting in the aftermath of her climax, but she twisted in his arms to face him. Her turquoise eyes fixed on her green ones, and in that look she communicated what she could. These fifteen minutes-- eleven, now, if she was counting right--she wanted them to be his. She wanted to give him this, to let him do with her what he would . . . even if she couldn’t face why this was suddenly so important to her.

But Rowan looked into her eyes and understood. She saw that light behind the hunger in his eyes. He swallowed. “From behind. I want you from behind, Aelin.”

She almost melted right out of his arms when he pronounced her name like that, and if she’d had any magic left in her, she might have lit on fire right then. But instead she nodded, lifting her hands to cup his face between them. She pulled him down to kiss her, capturing his lips with hers and throwing as much of her passion into it as she could muster.

Then she stepped away from him and turned to face the bed, letting him run his gaze over the pale, scarred skin of her back, her tattoos, her hips, her legs. She gathered her hair over her shoulder as she glanced back at him.

The storm in his eyes blew her away.

She climbed onto the bed, remaining on his knees, she listened as she heard his clothes drop to the floor behind him. She made herself stay focused ahead, not looking at him. She just wanted to _feel_ him.

Rowan’s hand paved a trail up her ridged and scarred back, putting just a slight pressure there as he mounted the bed behind her and guided her down so that she was balanced on her elbows. “I love you, Aelin Galathynius,” he said, his voice deep and full of feeling. “And I am honored to call you my wife.”

Aelin was about to scold him for wasting time with speeches, but all the words were robbed from her throat as Rowan sheathed himself inside her in one quick stroke. Instead, a deep-throated moan erupted instead, and her fingers clutched the sheets on the bed so tightly that her knuckles were almost whiter than the sheets.

Rowan fingers were ten points of pressure forming crescent-moons against the skin of her hips as he held her and moved deep within her, his breath ragged as he did. She did what she could to grind her hips against him as he thrust in and out. “My queen,” he grunted, his breaths near gasps as he took her, claimed her, forged her body and soul with his. The little magic Aelin still had left manifested in a sweltering heat pouring off her skin, which Rowan’s own magic shielded against without thought.

“You’re mine,” he said, “and I’m yours.”

“Yes, Rowan,” she gasped, her eyes squeezed shut and her teeth gritted as he brought her closer and closer to the precipice.

“To whatever end.”

“To whatever end.”

With one final thrust, Rowan poured himself inside her and she went soaring with him, the love and passion leaking from their pores enough to wash them away. When he was finished, he pulled out of her and turned her around so that she was seated on the bed and he was kneeling before her. The beauty of him--sweat-slicked and panting for breath--knocked her senseless, even as he took her hand in his. “I am devoted to you, mind, body, and soul. And I will tell you now, Aelin, that no matter what darkness you find yourself in, even if we’re apart, I will never stop coming for you. I will never stop searching. I swear this before Mala herself.”

Aelin sucked in a breath at the purity of Rowan’s oath. She wanted to tease him again for making a speech, but now--when she was so tired, and so afraid--she just absorbed his love and let him say what he needed to without interruption.

She sat up straight and laid her hand against his cheek. “I will never stop fighting for you,” she promised. “Not until I die, and probably even after that.”

Rowan covered her hand with hers, and they let words fade into silence as they stared into each other’s eyes, communicating thoughts and feelings that were beyond words.

After a moment, a feline smile spread across Aelin’s face. “What do you say we go make our enemies rue the day they challenged us?”

Rowan’s answering smile was just as wicked. “I’ll ensure they know your name from the bottom of the sea to the peaks of the stars.” He tipped his head forward and kissed her, lazy and insistent, and she returned the kiss with just as much possession.

At long last, she pulled back. “After you, Prince.”

Rowan shook his head, his beautiful smile stunning her. “Never. Always after you, wife.”

Aelin sighed and threw her head back to smile at the ceiling. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing that.”

“Good. Because I don’t intend to stop saying it, Majesty.”

“Prince.” She kissed his nose.

“Fireheart.” He caressed her cheek.

“Buzzard.”

He laughed and closed the space between their mouths one last time.

“Wife.”


End file.
